Gee the Markets Crowded, And It's Only Gettin' Worse!

You know what was great, having 3 console companies, because their competition forces the industry to come up with new, amazing ideas. Nintendo announces the Wii U with a second screen then XBox releases smart glass and I'd wager money that PS3 or PS4 has something along those lines in planning at this very moment. Since the dawn of console time, when one company innovates, the competitors copy the innovation with their own twist and the quality of product given to the user is increased, competition really is wonderful isn't it! So more competition should mean more innovation right? Maybe not, and I'm personally afraid that in the next few years the games industry will hit innovation saturation and leave the industry confused for years to come.

So, if I"m going to start off by nay-saying, I should at least give my reasons for anti-optimism. Over the next year we'll be seeing many new competitors attempting to enter users living room, each with compelling reasons for investing in thier new ideas.

The Current Contenders (not a complete list):

The OYUA is an open source, indie developer friendly, android platform where all content will be free for users to try (though some may have in game purchases, ending trials or subscriptions).

Thanks to smart TV's, we can expect to see OnLive enter millions of homes over the next year (weather users take advantage of it or not) and may entice some people with its ability to play the same game on your TV or low end computer any time seamlessly.

Valve has something big planned that will likely bring Steams huge indie market and some sort of powerful yet affordable PC to consumer homes (especially those who already have PC games, but not a PC for thier TV).

Tablets are everywhere, and developers are still coming out with creative social and interface features to keep tablet gaming compelling.

Apple is planning something, that based off apples track record, will be very overpriced, but flawlessly executed and will interface well with the millions of iphones and ipads already in users homes.

We can't forget teh big 3, Nintendo, Sony and Microsoft each of which will surely be bringing many game changing technologies to the market along with a long list of AAA titles in every genre.

Handheld Consoles such as the Nintendo 3DS and PSVita are offering an experience similar to home consoles on the go, and in many cases even ingratiating well with their TV connected counterparts.

Though each of the many listed platforms offer great opportunities for unique user experience, I find it hard to imagine that there are enough costumers for every new platform to thrive. Of course, the largest part of customers will stick with a console from the big 3, but an apple console could easily be just as big, and unique, low cost platforms such as OYUA and OnLive will no doubt be taken on as a second platform by some of the more adventurous gamers, but how much innovation is too much. In order for the industry to stay healthy enough to continue pumping out AAA games, companies must be able to sell at least few hundred thousand copies of a product. For some games like Halo and Black Ops which sell to a high percentage of their platforms install base, this splintering of the market won't matter, but to smaller projects, this market splintering will be terrible because smaller games only sell to a small percentage of the install base (people with a platform that supports the software). Basically, if there are more competitors platforms on the market, small game studios will be forced to spend less on developing games due to less cost or the increased cost of porting a game to more platforms. Also, how much innovation is too much. Sure, the Wii U's tablet controler looks like it'll have some great uses that can be copied to some degree on Smart glass and whatever PS3 might come up with, but are all innovations good? Wii did well with the wii remote, but it seems that most would consider the move or kinect to be failures. The other companies copied the Wii, but they only ended up wasting time and money on innovations that few games support and fewer gamers actually use. With the new generation of consoles coming on, companies have to incorporate their own version of every the new technology that their competitors have for fear that their console wouldn't be comparable with the next big thing. For fear of missing out on a competitors technology, I image that the Wii U and Microsoft and Sony's next gen consoles will be littered with features that nobody will ever use but must still be supported weather they end up adding anything to user experience at all. The game industry's in danger of trying to be everything for everyone, and in the process, forgetting how to do any one thing well. Maybe my ideas are unfounded, but I know that I wont' be able to buy every console that i'll want in the next two years, and probably will hardly use one or two of the consoles that I do buy because the market has gotten too big for gamers own good. So what do you think? What consoles will you guy? What consoles do you expect to buy and hardly touch? What features do you expect to see, and will they end up being useless fluff? Am I totally wrong? Speak up in the comments! Rock on IGNers!